The developer’s guide to social programming : building social context using Facebook, Google friend connect, and the Twitter API

The World Wide Web is in constant flux and, since the introduction of utilities such as
Facebook and Twitter, has only recently had social interaction at its core. Currently,
Facebook and Twitter have more than 400 million active users, and the Facebook
Platform alone is integrated with more than 250,000 websites and applications, engaging
over 100 million Facebook users each month.These numbers continue to increase each
day. Another dominant force is Google, who introduced their Friend Connect, which
enables users to add social functionality to any of their websites. All three companies
continue to roll out massive changes to their development platform, rendering previous
best practices obsolete.
However, just knowing the technical aspects of each platform is not a guarantee that
it will succeed. It is important to also see how each is distinct and to prepare you for
changes through examples and sample code.The purpose of these examples is to provide
a springboard to build applications on, so there is plenty of room for extending and
adapting to suit your own needs.This book is one of the first of its kind to bring
together three of the most popular social programming platforms under one hood.
Welcome to social programming.